Kate Middleton and family may have been phone hacking victims

The Duchess of Cambridge and her family may have been victims of the phone
hacking scandal.

Social media goes into meltdown following the birth of the Royal babyPhoto: REX

By Roya Nikkhah and Robert Mendick

9:00PM BST 23 Jul 2011

The Sunday Telegraph understands that the Duchess, her family and many members of the Royal household with close connections to senior royals have been targeted and that the extent of the hacking within royal circles was much more widespread than originally thought.

It came as the former wife of George Best said she believed the footballer's death had been hastened by alleged hacking thoughout the early part of the decade.

The initial investigation into phone hacking identified only five victims - Prince William, Prince Harry and three royal aides - who were targeted by the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire and the News of the World's royal editor, Clive Goodman.

Earlier this month, Guy Pelly, a close friend of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, launched a civil case against the News of the World over allegations of phone hacking.

It is understood that the police have recently contacted many royal officials to inform them that their voicemails were intercepted.

A source with knowledge of the investigation, said: "It was much more widespread than was known at the time and it involved a lot more people and a lot more hacking at all levels.

"They [Mulcaire and Goodman] reached out and targeted as many people as they could in that world. If they've targeted Prince William and Prince Harry, you can assume that they targeted their friends and immediate family."

Phone hacking within royal circles was originally exposed in November 2005 when Goodman wrote a story regarding a knee injury Prince William had suffered, and another story detailing an arrangement to borrow television editing equipment from Tom Bradby, the ITV journalist.

Both stories contained information that could only have come from the voicemail messages of Prince William and his aides.

The investigation and subsequent trial found that only three of Prince William and Prince Harry's aides had been hacked - Jamie Lowther Pinkerton, their private secretary, Helen Asprey, the Princes's personal secretary, and Paddy Harverson, the Prince of Wales's communications secretary.

On January 26 2007, Goodman was jailed for four months and Mulcaire for six months, after both admitted illegally intercepting voicemail messages.

On the same day Andy Coulson announced his resignation as editor of the News of the World, saying he did not know about the hacking but took "ultimate responsibility".

Six months later, Mr Coulson was hired by David Cameron, then leader of the opposition, as his communications director.

Senior royal aides have expressed their surprise that a political leader and aspiring prime minister would appoint a former editor of a tabloid newspaper as one of his closest advisers.

They are also said to have found the appointment "doubly surprising" in the context of the phone hacking scandal, given that the only known victims at the time were members of the Royal household.

The Princes are believed to have shared that surprise.

However, the "surprise" within the Royal household regarding Mr Coulson's appointment was not conveyed to Mr Cameron or the Conservative Party.

It has also emerged that Mr Coulson is being investigated by police for allegedly committing perjury while working for Mr Cameron in Downing Street.

It is the third criminal investigation that he faces, in addition to allegations that he knew about phone hacking while editing the paper and authorised bribes to police officers.

Detectives in Strathclyde confirmed that they had opened a perjury inquiry regarding evidence Mr Coulson gave in court last year in the trial of Tommy Sheridan, the former MSP who was accused of lying in court when winning a libel action against the News of the World.

Coulson was editing the paper when it ran a story accusing Sheridan of being an adulterer who visited swinging clubs.

Police are believed to be examining evidence that Mr Coulson gave during the trial denying any knowledge of phone hacking and payments to police officers, against the evidence held by the Scotland Yard investigation.

Last week, the Prime Minister sought to distance himself from Mr Coulson, having previously defended his decision to hire him.

In statement in the House of Commons, Mr Cameron said that with “hindsight”, he would not have hired him.

Royal aides are understood to be confident in the scope of the original inquiry into phone hacking, subject to any further charges in connection with the investigation.

It has also previously been claimed that the Duchess of Cambridge had her bank details hacked by a private detective working for a tabloid newspaper.

The then Miss Middleton's account is reported to have been accessed in 2005 by Jonathan Rees, a private investigator who once worked for the News of the World.

It has been reported that detectives at Scotland Yard have been in touch with the Duchess of Cambridge to warn her that her bank details may have been accessed, a claim not confirmed by St James's Palace.

It is understood that the reason the allegations fall outside the scope of the investigation, code-named Operation Weeting, is because they do not relate to phone hacking, but other forms of illegal intrusion.

It has also been claimed that the death of George Best may have been hastened by the pressure he was put under because his phone was hacked by the News of the World.

Police have apparently found evidence that Best, probably the greatest footballer of his generation, was hacked by Mulcaire.

Detectives from operation Weeting will interview Alex Best, his former wife, at her home in south London tomorrow [monday] where they will show her evidence from Mulcaire's notebooks.

Mrs Best, a former model who was divorced from Best in 2003 said yesterday she believed her and her then husband's phones were hacked for much of the decade and that this had put relentless pressure on Best.

She said: "When an alcoholic is under so much pressure, the first thing they do is turn to alcohol. He had so many problems with alcohol and the pressure they put him under only made things worse."

Best, the Manchester United and Northern Ireland international, died aged 59 in 2005 from multiple organ failure.

Mrs Best added: "It is very upsetting. They violated our lives. They always seemed to know where we were."

She wrote to police earlier this month, asking if she had been a victim of hacking. Last week, officers confirmed she and her former husband were targeted.

Mrs Best is also now likely to bring a separate civil claim against News International for breach of privacy.